Jubilant Tories have held on to power at a crisis-hit council. They spent the night celebrating after Linda Arkley was voted into office as the second elected Mayor of North Tyneside.

She beat Labour Euro MP Dr Gordon Adam with a majority of 4,861 and a total of 21,288 votes compared with Labour's 16,427.

The 51-year-old nurse will now step into the #50,000 a year hotseat. She admitted she was surprised the election wasn't a harder-fought contest, with voter turnout well down on last year.

The by-election was called after Chris Morgan resigned as mayor following his arrest for an alleged indecent assault and allegedly possessing computer child porn, plunging the council into crisis in April. He has not been charged with any offence.

One of the biggest shocks of the night saw the National Front candidate Robert Batten polling 2,554 votes.

Linda Arkley, a councillor for the Tynemouth ward, said: "It is now time to look to the priorities ahead. For one year we had a mayor who did some good work. I intend to take this and the Conservative manifesto forward.

"We have been delivering better services and aim to improve these even further. We have worked hard to put measures into place that have balanced the budget for the first time in years."

Under the first and second choice system, Tories polled 18,478 first choice votes against Labour's 13,070, while Liberal Democrat Michael Huscroft received 8,404, the NF 2,554 and the Socialist Alliance's Louise van der Hoeven 400. The Conservatives received 2,810 second choice votes, beaten marginally by Labour's 3,357.

Council chiefs admitted they were disappointed by the low turnout of just 43,718 compared to 60,865 in last year's mayoral elections.

Out of those 12,520 were postal votes and 812 were rejected for being spoiled papers.

Labour's Dr Adam said: "I am disappointed at the turnout. It isn't a happy state of affairs when so many people don't feel engaged in such an important process.

"There are lessons to be learned from this. We have to listen to the people and ensure we are discussing issues important to them."

Liberal Democrat leader Michael Huscroft said: "I was very disappointed at the low turnout and also that the National Front made such an impact in the area."

The authority has been under the microscope since 2001 when senior officers failed to tell councillors the extent of their cash problems.

The council ran up an overspend of #4.5 million, which led to services being slashed.